20200520 – ‘The Third Ear’ Page 9

Q. What happed at the seminar that the author attended?
What new ideas, for you, did you come across on this page?
Why did the author write ‘The Third Ear’?
Do you agree with the author’s reason for writing ‘The Third Ear’? If so, why? If not, why not?

The author attended a seminar in Hong Kong and met a young woman there. The young woman told the author that Chinese was really difficult for a Westerner. She had been working solid for two years and even then only had the basics. She was sure there was no way for a Westerner to learn Chinese faster than that.

Because of my own experience, I agreed with the woman. But the author thought differently. In his view, any language, difficult or easily to learn, can be mastered in just a few months actually. That’s new to me and, in fact, quite unbelievable… until now.

Rather than getting into an argument with the young woman he met at the seminar, the author decided to write ‘The Third Ear’.

I’ve currently benefited from the strategies and techniques our author shared in ‘The Third Ear’, therefore I couldn’t agree more. I was impressed when the author said that everyone is and has to be a language genius. We came into the world with no words and no grammar, somehow we still became fluent. If we can do it with our mother tongue, why not trying to do it again with a second language! What we should do is quite simple – to become a baby again, and learn and practice like a baby.